The invention relates to active acoustic attenuation systems, and more particularly to those systems providing sound cancellation in the presence of feedback sound from a compensating speaker or transducer, which sound is coupled back into the input and hence into the cancelling loop.
Prior feedback cancellation systems use a filter to compensate for feedback sound from the speaker to the input microphone. It is desirable that this filter be adaptive in order to match the changing characteristics of the feedback path. Prior systems will successfully adapt only for broad band noise input signals because the system input is uncorrelated with the output of the feedback cancellation filter. Uncorrelated signals average to zero over time. However, if the input noise contains narrow band noise such as a tone having a regular periodic or recurring component, as at a given frequency, the filter output will be correlated with the system input and will not converge. The filter may thus be used adaptively only in systems having exclusively broad band input noise.
Most practical systems, however, do experience narrow band noise such as tones in the input noise. The noted filter cannot be adaptively used in such systems. To overcome this problem, and as is known in the prior art, the filter has been pre-trained off-line with broad band noise only. This pre-adapted filter is then fixed and inserted into the system as a fixed element which does not change or adapt thereafter.
A significant drawback of the noted fixed filter is that it cannot change to meet changing feedback path characteristics, such as temperature or flow changes in the feedback path, which in turn change the speed of sound. During the pre-training process, the filter models a pre-determined set of given parameters associated with the feedback path, such as length, etc. Once the parameters are chosen, and the filter is pre-adapted, the filter is then inserted in the system and does not change thereafter during operation. This type of fixed filter would be acceptable in those systems where feedback path characteristics do not change over time. However, in practical systems the feedback path does change over time, including temperature, flow, etc.
It is not practical to always be shutting down the system and re-training the filter every time the feedback path conditions change, nor may it even be feasible where such changes occur rapidly, i.e., by the time the system is shut down and the filter re-trained off-line, the changed feedbackk path characteristic such as temperature may have changed again. For this reason, the above-noted fixed filter is not acceptable in most practical systems.
There is thus a need for truly adaptive feedback cancellation in a practical active acoustic attenuation system, where the characteristics of the feedback path may change with time. A system is needed wherein the feedback is adaptively cancelled on-line for both broad band and narrow band noise without dedicated off-line pre-training, and wherein the cancellation further adapts on-line for changing feedback path characteristics such as temperature and so on.